Media, Research, Journalism, Tourism, Anthropology

Main menu

Post navigation

Pollution in Ganga

I started this blog right after listening a news on India TV news channel that Ganga is going to dried up in next 30 years. I don’t know what is going on with Indian people. What are we waiting for? Are we waiting for the river to become a past?
Ganga is the most sacred river for Hindus. Only a Hindu can tell his devotion for this river or may be not even him. I don’t have words to describe how devoted I am for this river. More than 50,000 people still take bath every day in the Ganga in Varanasi. People from all over India come Benares to take the sacred bath. But we don’t have sacred water anymore. Ganga is still sacred and will be forever but the water. My mother is very religious woman but she doesn’t want to take bath in the river anymore. She still goes to the river, touches the water but never drinks. Hindus make their God statues bathe by Ganga water because it considered as the most clean water on the planet but my mother has stopped bringing the Ganga water in the house temple.
I often talk about this problem to various people and everybody says that our government and few NGOs, that run program to clean the water, are responsible for the present condition of Ganga.
I often take a walk along the ghats of Varanasi and like watching the people taking bath in the river. But sometimes I dont understand how people could do this. I have also taken few baths in the river but can’t do it again. The water is completely black now. I work as tour guide with foreigners. So, I often go for boat ride. There is a ghat called Shivala ghat where a small sewage discharge can be seen. All the water near Shivala ghat is thick and has foam.

Shivala is not the only place where we can see the sewage water mixing with the river. There are more than 7 big discharge points and unlimited small ones also. I am sure we have enough resources to clean this river, not only Ganga but all the rivers. We are preparing for commonwealth games, we are investing huge amonut of money in development projects like roads and special economic zones, we have super subways now. Cleaning of Ganges is not a big deal any more for India but I dont know what our government is doing.